Live minnows, a widely used fish bait, are usually transported to a fishing location in some type of water-containing minnow buckets. To properly bait a fishhook with a minnow, it is necessary to first remove the minnow from the water with some sort of dipping device, orient the minnow in a direction to conveniently pass the barbed end of the fishhook transversely through the minnow, and then remove the baited hook from the dipping device.
A problem common to all procedures involving the use of minnow dippers is that of confining the dipped minnow so that it can be impaled on a fishhook. Opentop minnow dippers sufficiently deep to preclude self-ejection of the minnow require longhandled tongs for reaching and holding the minnow. Certain previously described opentop dippers are constructed as a combination having an embodied tongs or other minnow-clasping members; such constructions are useful in baiting a hook, but only after the minnow has in some way been suitably positioned and restrained.